


A Mass for the dead

by Black_jay



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Akatsuki no Requiem theory, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Gen, Major Manga Spoilers, Not exactly a happy fic, Post-Time Skip, half a second of domestic violence and implied suicide, probably, written after chapter 131
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_jay/pseuds/Black_jay
Summary: Eren looks himself in the eye and wonders where it all went wrong.*A take on the Akatsuki no Requiem ending theory*
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Eren Yeager, Eren Yeager & Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman & Eren Yeager
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	A Mass for the dead

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, do NOT read this if you aren't caught up with the manga and don't want to be spoiled.
> 
> If you don't know what the Akatsuki no Requiem theory is, its basically saying that the music video for Akatsuki no Requiem (the fourth ending) [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbV3Yr3KCyg) describes the ending of AoT where Eren successfully carried out the rumbling, killing the alliance in the process. Look it up if you want to see it in a more in-depth discussion, there are a couple of good threads out there.
> 
> This is probably ooc, but hey, Eren is hard to write.
> 
> Also, just to clarify, this is not going to be an Erehisu shipping fic.

**Req·ui·em**   
**noun**   
**(especially in the Roman Catholic Church) a Mass for the repose of the souls of the dead.**

* * *

Galaxies. Stars. Sand. Colors; blue, purple, and white flicking through the back of his eyelids. Screams. Smoke- or is it steam? Footsteps.

Eren awakes with a gasp, rocketing up and clutching at the grass, chest heaving. His eyes dart around wildly, taking in the green, rolling plains and grey stones littering the hillsides. 

Where is he? The last thing he remembers is… what _is_ the last thing he remembers? He doesn't know, his mind is… fuzzy, as if his skull is stuffed with cotton.

He stands shakily, using the tree behind him to support himself when his knees threaten to buckle beneath him. He runs a hand through his short, sweat-damp hair.

The air is warm, but not uncomfortably so. Yellow rays of the sun shine down on the dewy grass, and the leaves above him rustle calmingly. Purple flowers sway lazily in the breeze. He takes in the landscape, the hills- barren of any trees other than the one he’s under, and the horizon, tinged orange- wait. Horizon? Where are the walls?

He stumbles in a circle, gaping when he finds that there are no towering walls in sight, only wide-open sky and distant mountains.

 _Where_ is this? _When_ is this?

He lurches forward when he sees a distant city, no walls surrounding it either, but stops in his tracks when the sound of soft, rhythmless footsteps reaches his ears. 

He turns around, and it takes him a moment to spot the limping one-legged figure, a crutch under one arm and a bundle of flowers in the other, approaching one of the stones.

Eren takes off at a run towards the man, kicking up tufts of grass. “Hey mister!” The man acts as if he can't hear him, kneeling in front of the grey stone, long hair shielding his face from view. Eren runs until he's only ten feet away from the man and stops so fast he almost sends himself sprawling forward.

Those aren't stones at all: they’re graves.

Eren sweeps his gaze across the hills, realizing that this is not a field of wide open hills, but a cemetery- a cemetery certainly many times bigger than the biggest one within the walls.

“Mister?” Eren asks hesitantly, approaching much more cautiously than before.

The man doesn't so much as look at him despite the fact that Eren is less than five feet away now. He sets the bouquet of five-petaled purple-blue flowers at the base of the gravestone, arms trembling, and it takes him a moment for Eren to realize that the man is racked with _sobs._ Not any sobs either, Eren knows the difference. Sobs born from pure _despair._

Standing to the side, Eren mulls over his options. He could run to the city, but what then? Where are the walls? Is this even in Shiganshina? Where's Mikasa? She was there, wasn't she?

All those questions become fleeting, however, when the man raises his head and Eren is met with his own eyes.

Eren balks, taking a step back. That’s _his_ face. Older, sure, lacking the roundness in his cheeks and warmth of his skin, and he seems to have gained a sturdy pair of eye bags and some facial hair, but that's _him,_ no doubt about it.

Eren, _him,_ the _real_ Eren, not that older man wearing his own face, looks to the cloudless sky as if it will tell him what the hell is going on. It doesn’t.

He startles when the man (that's what Eren has decided to call him; ‘the man’ because that is _not_ him) jerks his head to the side, but it takes him a moment to realize that he isn't looking at him, but _through_ him. His eyes are pink and watery, but they are certainly not focused on him.

Eren touches his chest in a feeble attempt to convince himself that he’s still there, and he is, but the man can't seem to see him.

He doesn't know how long he stands there to the right of the man, but eventually, the man gathers himself with a steeling breath and uses the crutch to push himself to his feet before setting off down a gravel path that Eren hadn't noticed before, leaving the flowers on the grave.

After a second of hesitation, Eren follows, and it’s only a few minutes down the road that he realizes he never read what the headstone said.

* * *

The city is _giant._ And _clean,_ and _happy,_ and _paradise._

Buildings half as tall as the walls loom above him, and the streets are crowded with people; families going from storefront to storefront, children running through the sidewalks and dodging pedestrians, couples sitting in front of a sparkling clear fountain with little cups of tea or mugs of some black, bitter smelling liquid he doesn't recognize.

He sweeps his eyes across the scene, amazed, lapping up the simple happiness emanating from the atmosphere. Not walls in sight, no titans, and, at a closer inspection, he finds that there are no Garrison soldiers hanging around drinking- in fact, he can’t see one set of ODM gear anyway. Eren dares let himself hope. Is this the future? Is humanity finally free? 

He imagines life where the titans have been eliminated and humanity can live freely, cultivating the lands outside the walls. He imagines his Mom hanging the sheets out to dry in the log-flowing breeze, and Armin and him watching the sunset from his own window, no longer having the climb to the tallest roof in Shiganshina to see even a hint of the colors.

He and Armin and Mikasa could go and find the lands in Armin’s book, see the _ocean_ and taste the salt.

Eren gleefully bounds after the man before he can lose him in the crowd. There are a few disconcerting moments where someone walks straight through him, unable to see him, but Eren is too excited to really care whether this was just a dream or the _future._

The man pushes through the bustling city with his head down, the _clack_ of his crutch against the stone being drowned out by residual chatter, for some time before entering a quieter neighborhood with paved streets and single-family homes, unlike the buildings back in Shiganshina that were many stories high with many families living in them. A dog barks in the distance and a white and grey bird perched on a low-hanging branch tilts its head to look at him. 

Eren stops in his tracks. Can it see him? Its the first living thing to actually _look_ at him this entire time. He slowly stretches his hand out, but it flies away with a squawk before he can get too close. He tucks his hand close to his chest, eyes lingering on the empty branch before he jogs to catch up with the man.

The man stops in front of a house at the very end of the street that looks no different than the others, but the man swallows heavily, adjusts his crutch, and walks up the steps. Of course, Eren follows.

The porch creaks its protest under the man’s foot but is silent when Eren pads up the steps, slipping through the doorway behind the man before the door can swing closed.

The smell of baking bread immediately invades his senses when he steps in the house, like the bread his mom would make. The walls are a calming yellow, and _extremely_ detailed sketches of flowers and animals hang on them, but he can't help but notice the lack of people in the sketches. 

He moves closer, leaning forward to gaze past the glass frame. It really doesn't look like a sketch at all, or a painting, it's much too detailed, but he can't think of what else it could be…

“You’re back!”

Eren startles when there’s suddenly the _thud_ of rapid feet against the wood floor, immediately getting transported back to the dream he had before waking in this strange, great world, _thud, thud, thud-_

The young girl the footsteps belong to skids around the hallway corner and flings herself into the man’s arms with a noise of excitement. The man stumbles back, chuckling, reaching down to give her a one-armed hug, keeping the other one on his crutch to keep himself standing.

The girl looks not much younger than Eren himself, maybe seven or eight. Her blonde hair falls over her eyes despite her pink headband, and her pale skin has a healthy pink tinge to it.

“Eren,” a feminine voice says softly.

Eren’s head snaps up but the woman isn't looking at him. She's looking at the man. He can immediately feel the tension snap into place in the air, almost palpable.

She’s short, dressed in a long dress under a stained apron tied at the waist, limp blond hair falling over her shoulders. She wipes her hands on her thighs, leaving behind a smear of flour.

The man releases the girl with a tight-lipped smile, murmuring something that Eren can’t hear, to which the girl answers with a smile, who runs back to the woman. She grabs the girl’s hand. She must be her daughter. Is the man the father? But the way they’re acting… doesn't seem like a typical marriage.

“What are you doing here?” The blonde woman asks tersely. 

“I need to use your library,” the man says, casting his eyes to the floor.

“Why can’t you use the public one?”

“You know why,” he snaps, and immediately looks like he regrets it.

The woman sighs heavily but, after a beat where she stares him down, jerks her head to the right in ascent, presumably towards the library. The man brushes past her, keeping his eyes averted, and Eren follows, but not without casting a long look at the woman, who’s stern facade turns to resigned sorrow once the man turned away.

When Eren enters the library- more of a study, really, he finds the man already bent over a book lying open on the desk. He approaches, craning his neck to catch a peek at the pages. Finally, the man moves his arm to grasp at his own hair, giving Eren a perfect view of the inked paper. His eyes widen at the picture of the ocean he finds on the page. That's _Armin’s_ book! Eren’s eyes flick to the man. This really must be future him.

Before Eren can get a closer look at the book, however, the man collapses to the floor, sending his crutch clattering to the side. Eren stumbles back, surprised.

Shuttering sobs rack the man’s body and he cries on his hands and knees, long hair pooling onto the cracking wood floor. Eren hesitantly reaches his hand out. What's wrong with him? What’s so bad about this future? The people are free, the titans are gone, there are no walls in sight- it should be paradise. He touches the man’s shoulder and a bolt of lightning rips through him.

* * *

Dust and silt fills his lungs.

He’s no longer in his own body- or rather, he _is,_ technically. He’s in _Eren Jaeger’s_ body, yes, but not _his_ body. He’s much too tall for one, and his hair is too long, so long that it drapes over his eyes and brushes against his collarbone. There's an excruciating pain in his leg, but he can't quite bring himself to care. Are those his emotions, or _his?_

Eren looks down, but it doesn't really feel like _he's_ the one doing it, more like he's a marionette puppet being controlled by someone, or _something else_. Half of a broken-off sword blade is embedded in one side of his calf and goes straight out the other, no handle attached. Well, that explains that. 

In his hand is the same type of sword, the cable coming out of the back connected to nothing. It’s heavy.

Eren sweeps his gaze across the scene in front of him (without moving his eyes, because, try as he might, he has no control over this body. All of _this_ Eren's actions are predetermined and apparently, he wasn't looking around at that moment) and is immediately met with a giant steaming skeleton a dozen meters in front of him, the skull staring at him with empty eye-sockets.

There’s a huge pile of folded metal that looks like it was once some sort of machine smoking on the ground a little ways away on a patch of grey, smoldering grass. The earth shakes in rhythm, distant _thumps_ echoing through the air. He seems to be inside some kind of giant rib cage, bones buried in the dirt miles apart, bases obscured by grey smoke or steam.

And, of course, there's the people.

“Eren, _please._ This isn't freedom, this is _slaughter_. _”_

He turns to the man- boy, really- standing in front of him, bloodied hand clutching at his stomach, steam billowing from under his fingers and legs wobbling like a newborn deer. If he could, Eren would squint to see the man better through the smoke and sparks, but he just inhabits this body, he doesn't control it.

Though, he swears- that blond hair, those eyes, that voice… wait.

“And letting the world destroy the island isn’t?” The man Eren is seeing through says, but he can feel the raspy vibrations in his own throat. “It’s okay. You chose the world, not the island. It’s okay.”

There are other bodies scattered behind him; the one closest is a tall, long-haired man with a long piece of shrapnel sticking out of his chest with _to much_ blood surrounding him. He's still heaving out broken breaths but looks otherwise dead to the world, eyelids fluttering and pupils unseeing.

“I’m sorry.” The words come out of Eren’s own throat, but it’s not his voice. Too deep, too raspy, too _broken._

Eren struggles in his bonds but he can't move, can't scream, can't even close his eyes unless the other Eren wills it. That's Armin! That's Armin holding his guts in with one hand and a sword in the other.

A sword that's pointed at him.

“But I can’t let you stop this.”

Armin makes a pained noise in the back of his throat. His grip around the sword tightens, telling Eren exactly what he's going to, but Eren feels his own hand (but it isn’t _his hand_ , he thinks desperately) grab the sharp edges of the sword before Armin can make a move, slicing his palm open, and shoves the handle into Armin’s already injured stomach, sending him sprawling back with a grunt and a barely-there whimper (this version of Eren has the same freckle on his right index finger). 

Armin gasps out at ragged breath, and it isn’t until now that Eren notices the blade already sticking through the meat of Armin’s thigh. _What the hell is happening?_ Eren thinks, long past the point of panic, about to nose-dive straight into shocked, muted terror.

Eren doesn’t know what to do- he _can’t_ do anything. He can’t move, can't speak, can’t avert his eyes, he sees, he does whatever this… this _man_ does. Logically, Eren knows that this isn’t any old man, this is _him._ He doesn’t know _how,_ but he _is_. He’s known since the moment he saw his face. 

Something cracks in the distance and another plume of black smoke rises, the wind carrying it to him and coating his lungs. Eren flexes his fingers around the handle of the sword in his right hand, fingers tracing the various buttons and triggers.

This must be one of his own memories, _future_ him’s memories. But… what about that city? Was that a lie? Eren feels nauseous. What the hell is future him doing? Was… was he the one to hurt Armin? The obvious answer is _yes,_ but… that can’t be right. He’d never hurt Armin. And who are those other people? What about Mikasa, where is she?

This is so confusing. Eren keeps waiting to wake up from this horrible dream, but it feels so _weird._ The smell of smoke, the humidity of steam, the wind tearing at their clothes; it's all too _real_.

Armin, still on the ground and curled around his stomach, glares up at him. There are slit-like marks under his eyes and a piece of flesh hanging off of his cheek. Eren takes a step forward. Armin’s gaze, previously focused only on Eren’s eyes, flicks to something behind him.

Much to Eren’s own horror, he immediately spins on his heels, bearing down on the black-haired person sneaking up behind him with her weapon raised like the talons of a predatory bird.

Even through the blood Eren can recognize her. Her hair’s shorter, she has a scar across her cheek, and she looks utterly _destroyed,_ but it's no mistaking it. Mikasa. Mikasa, looking at him like he's a monster.

The scarf, more grey than red at this point, is crumpled on the ground behind her, abandoned and left to rot.

The sword she has poised over his neck flashes in the weak sunlight filtering through the dust, shaking with the little tremors of her hands. Her fingers tighten around the handle, sliver blade inches away from the vulnerable skin of his throat, she doesn't plunge the sharp edge into his throat. Her glistening, scrunched eyes hold nothing but despair. Silver meets green.

She hesitates.

He runs her through.

Internally, Eren lets out an anguished cry, but it doesn't travel farther than his own head. 

Mikasa chokes, coughing up a spray of blood. Crimson droplets land on Eren’s face, but he doesn’t flinch or try to wipe them away, just watches her, expression reflecting her own shock.

Her hands drop her sword and come down to shakily grasp the two-foot-long pressed shard of metal embedded under her sternum. He knows without looking that the sword goes straight through her back as well. 

Mikasa stumbles to the ground, staring at him with wide eyes. Her arms are no longer just trembling, they're _shaking_ , a step away from spasming, and she grabs at the sword spearing her through her chest, then the ground, then the scarf, then the sword again, as if she can't decide what to focus on in her last moments. 

A muffled sob sounds from behind Eren.

Eren’s arms would be shaking too if he had any control over his- no, _their_ body, but he can’t look away from Mikasa’s rapidly weakening form. Her chest heaves and blood gurgles over her tongue and drips down her chin in little red rivulets, but she's eerily silent, eyes not leaving his face- the only focused part of her trembling body.

Eren stares at her with rising horror until her eyes go blank and glassy, and even then he doesn't look away until a hand wraps around his ankle.

“You’re not free,” Armin hisses with more fury than Eren has ever seen Armin show in his entire life, and it ignites behind his eyes in this one moment. “You’re the biggest slave alive, and you're a selfish bastard.”

Armin coughs on the dust, and little shards of gravel and bone collect in his eyelashes. “You’re damn right I chose the world.”

Pure, unbridled anger that's not his arises in Eren’s gut. His face contorts, not into a sneer, not quite, but into a dark, twisted expression of resolution.

He picks up Mikasa’s abandoned sword from the ground and raises it.

* * *

Eren _wrenches_ his hand back, stumbling back and falling to the floor, gulping down grateful breaths of _clear,_ unsullied air, watching the man with dawning horror. He scrambles backward until his shoulders are pressed to the door so harshly that it's bordering on painful.

The man’s hand comes up to clutch at where Eren touched him, and he looks over his shoulder, blinking slowly. Green meets green.

Eren gets to his feet so fast that his head spins and he slams the door open, sprinting from the room, sliding into the wall on the way out, pain flaring in his shoulder, but he doesn't _care._

He _has_ to know.

He _runs_. He runs until his lungs burn and his ankle chafes and his shoes fill with blood. He runs until black spots dance in front of his eyes and each breath feels like taking a cheese-grater to the throat. He runs through the city full of people who can’t see him, through miles of the sea of graves that seem never-ending. Until it does end. Abruptly.

He stumbles and falls to his knees where the grass ends and the dirt and rubble begins.

There are no more graves, no more trees or flowers as far as the eye can see. Only footprints. Giant footprints. Footprints so big that at first glance they don’t look to be footprints at all but natural divots in the hills- if there were any hills left, that is. 

It’s a slice in the landscape, as if someone took a butcher’s knife and cut the world in two- life on one side, brown desolation on the other. Piles of rubble and dust lay in heaps, and he sees what looks to be the remains of a door a quarter-mile away- the only standing structure in sight.

Eren collapses to his elbows, then dissolves into sobbing. 

He mercilessly rubs his hands against the grass, trying to find a stone, rough pierce of bark, anything that can be used to erase the sensation of plunging a sword into Mikasa’s body. He claws at his skin until it is red and raw, white lines marring his forearms. His ankle still tingles where Armin grabbed it.

He knows those swords. They’re part of the ODM gear. Were they part of Survey corps? Garrison? Hell, even the Military Police?

Eren laughs hysterically to himself, digging his forehead into the ground, no doubt grinding grass into his hair. It doesn't matter now. They’re dead! He killed them! Why? _Why_ would he kill them? It makes no sense!

Is this a prophecy? Can he change the future?

Eren collects his breath, wiping his tears on his sleeve. Yeah… yeah, it's okay. He must have been sent here to prevent the future from happening. This… this is just one future of many, he can change it! He’ll make sure they’re never sent down this path. When he wakes up from this hell he’ll change it! Then he can just write this off as a bad dream. Yeah… he’ll remember. He’ll stop this.

Eren rises to his knees, sitting on his heels, arms hanging limply at his side, wind blowing his hair back and drying his red-rimmed eyes, bringing the scent of… nothing with it. It’s blowing from the direction of the never-ending desolate wasteland spanning in front of him.

* * *

He finds himself wandering back to the city.

He can't understand how he thought this was paradise before.

Of the people walking the streets, few are smiling, and the ones they do look so happy that it looks like a facade. Or maybe he's just bitter.

A preacher stands on a box, shouting prayers with thinly-veiled threats woven in between, a small but loyal crowd gathered under him. A passing man spits at their feet and one of the followers tries to claw out his eyes.

Two children run down the road, laughing and screaming, but their mother trailer behind them, tiredly telling them off and ordering them back to her side. They ignore her.

Eren drifts from sidewalk to sidewalk, ally to ally, yard to yard, not unlike a ghost. A stray cat hisses at him from the rim of a trash can. He eventually wanders into a muddy backyard, the silhouettes of an arguing couple projected onto the curtain. A few moments later the woman is pushed out the back door and into the dirt. The man slams the door behind her and Eren distinctly hears the click of the lock engaging.

The woman sits crying in the mud, a bright-red mark in the shape of a hand across her cheek. A couple of streets down two drunk men are knocking each other's teeth out

This is just like in Shiganshina. The same shithole, just without the walls.

Eren doesn't know where to go, whoever stuck him here hasn't deemed him worthy of being taken out, so he heads back to the blonde woman’s house. 

It’s dark when he enters, the hall only illuminated by the beams of moonlight trickling through the curtains, but it's enough to see by, if not much more.

He pads silently even though he doesn't have to. The first door on the right is cracked open so he slips inside. It’s the girl’s room.

She’s tucked in bed, curled up under a quilt donning little black and white caricatures of cats and dogs. Wooden letters standing on top of her dresser spell out **YMIR** , and a dim oil lantern with a flickering candle in it sits next to a little figurine of a bird, emitting an orange glow just bright enough to illuminate the bedroom, casting long shadows. He approaches her desk, finding papers sprawled across the wood. On the papers are childish sketches of wide blue plains and a tree-like thing that he can't quite decipher.

Presumably “Ymir” grumbles in her sleep, turning under the covers. Eren takes that as his cue to leave even though he knows that if she did wake she wouldn't be able to see him.

He makes his way down the hall, passing the empty library. He swallows dryly when he spots Armin’s book still open to the same page. Eren freezes when he hears soft sniffling from the direction of the kitchen, if he remembers correctly, and he drags his eyes from the study and to the doorway at the end of the hall.

He stops in the doorframe, tilting his head. The blonde woman sits at the kitchen table with her head in her hands, silent sobs racking her body. Eren takes another step in. The wood creaks under his foot.

He goes rigid as her head shoots up and she squints in his direction. “... Eren?”

Eren sucks in a breath through his teeth as she stands, narrowing her eyes. She can't see him, her eyes are focused in his general direction but he knows she's looking through him, yet she approaches anyway, stretching a hand out. 

It takes her a second to find him, like a blind woman fumbling through a market, but when her hand brushes through his shoulder she gasps, yanking her hand back and holding it tight against her chest. Eren doesn't feel any different, but now she's staring _at_ him through her red-rimmed eyes with an odd mixture of horror and incredulity.

“Oh god, _Eren.”_

Eren can’t handle this. He turns and darts down the hall out out the door, ignoring her calls for him to come back.

* * *

The sun is warm. Not so hot it makes you sweat, but warm enough to sit comfortably in short sleeves.

Eren hates that. He hates that it's nice here. It should be cold, damp, and thundering, not… _this._ The birds have no right to sing so loudly, the grass has no right to look so green, the ants crawling up the bark of the tree behind him don't deserve to be thriving.

The man is at the graves again. He alternates between six, but visits four of them more than the others and two of them the most of all. 

The sun has risen and fallen so many times that Eren’s not sure how long he’s been here, but it feels like an eternity. He doesn't need to eat or sleep so he drifts aimlessly through the city or through the graveyard, reading the unfamiliar names of the headstones and imagining the lives they lead, and if he was the one to cut them short. He’s consciously avoided the ones the man always visits. He doesn't want to know.

The next time he sees the man he looks older, his eyes are even more sunken and a few strands of grey hair are tucked behind his ears.

Eren curls his fingers tighter around the kitchen knife he took from an unsuspecting family at the outskirts of the city, glowering at the man. 

The man knows he’s there, he and the woman are the only ones who have consistently been able to see him, but the man never approaches him, just casts him glances and looks away, _almost_ guiltily. Almost.

Eren slowly pushes himself to his feet, holding the knife with a rigid arm as he wades through the grass and graves until he’s standing behind the man. The man doesn't make any movement to acknowledge him, but he’s not naive enough to assume he hadn't heard him approach.

His hands tremble.

The man looks over his shoulder at him. His eyes flick down to the knife and back up to his face but there's not so much as a twitch of his eyebrow in reaction. He turns back to the grave, hanging his head.

Eren’s lip trembles and he fights against a sudden wave of tears. Through the blurriness, he looks to the city, standing tall in the distance. It’s beautiful from out here, shining in the sun. The bell in the bell tower starts to swing with a _bong_ that reaches all the way to the graves.

“Damn it,” Eren mutters weakly, dropping the knife to the grass.

The man shifts, shoulders relaxing a minuscule amount, but doesn’t say anything.

As Eren passes, he can't help but look at the name marking the grave, carved into the stone in deep, precise letters. He finds exactly what he thinks he will.

**Mikasa Ackerman**

**835-854**

There's nothing else under it, no epitaph, quote, or picture. None of the graves do- just blank granite.

He doesn't have to look at the headstone a few meters to the left to know it’s Armin’s.

”I wanted a better world. A free world”

Eren turns to the man, but he's not looking at him.

The man shudders. ”I didn’t even care about the walls, about the titans, until Armin showed me that book. He’s the only reason I had that dream.” He looks up at Eren, still crouched on the ground, eyes red and a sad, a bitter smile twisting his lips. ”And what did he get for it? Death. I killed him. And he never got to see it. I destroyed it, then I destroyed him.”

Eren grits his teeth, eyebrows pulling together.

The man sniffs, looking away, voice falling to a mumble. ”He chose to save the world we wanted see, and the people with it. And I chose this fucking island. But you have to understand!" he says, rounding on Eren, desperation bleeding into his voice. "The world was going to kill us! They betrayed their people by going against me! I just wanted to save them!"

He breaks off, the desperate, open-mouthed smile-turned-grimace fading from his face. "No... no, I didn't."

He straightens, adjusting his crutch under his arm. ”At first, I told myself it was for their sake- that I was going to give them a free world. But then I realized... it wasn’t. I’m a selfish bastard. I was disappointed that there were people alive and well all over the world. The world I sought to explore didn't exist, and the people in it wanted me dead.”

Eren stares at the dropped knife a few feet to his right. He could pick it up again. he could end it.

The man doesn't notice where he's looking, and Eren has the sneaking suspicion he's just ranting to himself, though, he supposes that he was before.

"I knew I couldn’t make a free world for the ones I love because they couldn’t handle the cost. Yet I still did it anyway. And even the worst girl in the world can’t bear to look at me.”

A wild look comes over the man's face. ”I tried to push them away, but... I should’ve known they wouldn’t let me stop them. Armin never runs.” He presses the heel of his palms against his temples like a madman, keeping himself standing with the crutch tucked under his armpit. "I never thought _I_ would kill them, but... in that moment, I was so wrapped up in the _power_ I held, I- I... I couldn’t let them make everything I’d done for naught.”

He stumbles, and at first, Eren thinks he's going to fall, but he regains his balance and slowly lowers himself to the ground, staring at the grass in front of Mikasa's grave the entire time. Eren doesn't look back to the knife and comes to stand behind the man, silent.

He presses his hand to the grass, and a tear slips down his face, and Ere's eyes follow it as it travels down his chin and falls into the dirt. ”She’s down there, you know," the man says hollowly. "Buried her myself. I buried all of them. Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, Hangi." He trails off, eyes going glassy. "I can still feel the sick warmth of their blood on my hands.”

Eren doesn't know who half those people are, but he's not about to ask. He'll make sure to remember the names, though, so when he wakes he can stop them from going down this trail where he turns into this... this _pathetic_ man.

Said pathetic man laughs humorlessly to himself. ”We never found Levi's body. For a while, I thought he might have survived and was just living out there, somewhere in that destruction. But no. Even he can’t survive on nothing but dust and saltwater. I know he's dead too.”

He spins on his heel to look back to him, and Eren is forced to meet his eyes. It's impossible not to. "I wanted them next to Sasha, but those spots were already taken, so now they're out here, miles away from the city, in the middle of nowhere."

He huffs out something that might be a laugh or might be a sob. "Most of the graves are empty, you know. Maybe an arm or a leg here and there, but most of the headstones are honorary- there weren't remains to bury." He shakes his head, an unsettling, pained smile stretching his lips so wide his canines flash. "But not _them,"_ he says, voice breaking off into a sad little squeak at the end of the sentence. He gestures to the surrounding tombstones.

Sure enough, the one to his right reads: **Jean Kirstein**. He can guess what the others say.

"No," the man breaths. "They weren't killed by titans."

The man's hair is hanging over his face as he stares at the ground as if trying to see Mikasa's remains through the six feet of dirt. A beat. The silence stretches on.

"Say something," the man says, voice low.

Eren's nostrils flare. He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. What does he want? His forgiveness? He looks at the man, crouched in front of his friends' graves that _he_ killed. He doesn't even have the balls to own up to it. He doesn't deserve his forgiveness, even if it were his to give.

The man growls in the back of his throat and his heavy, rapid breathing fills the air. "Say something, damn you!"

Eren's face contorts into a silent snarl and before he realizes what he's doing he's marching back to the abandoned knife and _kicking_ it in the man's direction, sending it tumbling until it comes to rest just short of the man's shoe.

"You're a damn coward. If you regret it that badly then do something about it," Eren spits, jerking his head towards the knife. "Kill me if you hate it so much- I'm the one who's going to do it, right?" Turning on his heels, Eren storms off through the plains and empty graves, leaving the man gaping after him. 

Eren doesn't look back, and he hears nothing more from the man.

* * *

“... Eren!”

Eren jerks awake with a gasp, clutching at the grass underneath his palms. Mikasa leans over him, long hair swaying gently in the breeze. Eren rubs at his forehead. He feels like he’s just had the _longest_ dream, but he can't remember anything other than fuzzy images and distant sounds. There was something about a city? Stones, maybe? _Shit,_ his head _hurts._

“It will get dark if we don't go home now," Mikasa says, straightening and hitching the straps looped around her shoulder higher.

Eren grunts, pushing himself to his elbows, blinking blearily at the landscape; the purple flowers, the tree, the looming wall. He looks to Mikasa. Since when was her hair that long? It spills over the sticks piled in the carrier on her back. Sticks. That's right. They were collecting firewood. Why does that feel like so long ago...?

Mikasa tilts her head. "Why are you crying, Eren?”

Eren furrows his eyebrows, lightly touching the space under his eye. His fingertips come away wet.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:  
> I didn't want Eren and Historia to be the happy couple that a lot of people seem to think they’ll be, because honestly, I can't see Historia exactly welcoming Eren back with open arms. She supports him, sure, but Mikasa, Armin, and co. are still her friends too, and I can't really imagine her having a relationship with the man that killed them. I don't think she'd hate him, but I think romance is pushing it. In my eyes, if Eren was willing to kill his friends to reach his perfect, ‘free’ world, then the rumbling was truly for himself, for selfish reasons.
> 
> I think it would be against the themes of the series if after the rumbling Eren lives a happy life and Paradis is prosperous and, well, free and peaceful. Didn’t Pixis and Kiyomi say something about how humanity will always be fighting each other down to the last man? That’s not gonna change even with several less billion people in the world. While writing this I was going for the effect of Paradis looking peaceful and happy at first, but when you look at the details you see that the world is just as ugly as before, because even though mass genocide will certainly get rid of the Eldian discrimination problem, if people like Floch any of the Yeagerists are put in charge, their society will surely fall into civil war or even into a full fascist government (unless, of course, Eren erases their memories, but I find that unlikely, to revert back to what the first king of the walls did is certainly against his morals).
> 
> Also, no need to tell me why I’m totally wrong and this will never ever happen and I’m so stupid for writing this, because this was just for fun and I know its not perfect, just something to tide me over while waiting for the manga to end. We can agree to disagree.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for listing to me ramble, and thanks for reading!


End file.
